50 Shades of Retrospective by Chris Stone

Easy Agile Co-Founder and Co-CEO Nick Muldoon walks through the essentials of User Story Mapping.

Nick talks about his experiences running Story Mapping sessions at Twitter. As well as covering:

• Why story mapping?
• How to run a story mapping session?
• What are the benefits?

You might be interested in our Ultimate Guide to User Story Mapping

If you're short on time, use the chapter markers to reach specific content.

Want to see how story mapping can benefit your team?

Easy Agile User Story Maps

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Join us for an engaging and practical 30-minute webinar, Your Quarterly Planning Accelerator, where we’ll dive into strategies and tools that can transform your team’s quarterly planning process.

Our expert speakers Teagan Harbridge (Easy Agile) and Aslam Cader (Valiantys) will share expert insights on:

1. Enhancing visibility across projects

2. Creating and maintaining cross-team coordination

3. How to make better decisions, faster

4. Practical implementation and support for better planning

Whether you’re an experienced release train engineer seeking the extra 1% or a beginner looking to establish your best practice, this webinar is full of practical tips designed to help you succeed.

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When everything is “top priority”, nothing ships. Two weeks before planning, teams pull in different directions; work starts, but no one can name the one outcome you’ll deliver together.

If that sounds familiar, this session is for you.

In this on-demand session, Hayley Rodd (Easy Agile) and Andreas Wengenmayer (catworkx) show a practical way to align on outcomes, cut the noise, and keep delivery moving. You’ll see how to make priorities visible, surface dependencies early, and keep a single, living view of progress. We demo the flow in Jira with Easy Agile Programs, but the lessons apply to any tool you use today.

Why this matters now

• Goals live in slides, backlogs live elsewhere, and priorities change mid-cycle. Teams are busy, yet progress feels brittle.
• Dependencies show up late, reviews balloon into status theatre, and the roadmap quietly drifts from the original intent.
• Leaders ask for visibility; teams want fewer interruptions. Both are possible with a clearer shared view.

What you’ll walk away with

• A 5-step checklist to connect strategy to execution
• How to choose 3–5 objectives and prioritise with a simple business value scale
• How Release Train Engineers, Product Managers, Product Owners and Engineering Managers align on outcomes
• Mapping dependencies early and tracking progress in real time in Jira
• Using PI Objectives and a lightweight review rhythm to stay on course

Speakers

Hayley Rodd - Senior Partner Manager, Easy Agile
Helps customers and partners turn strategy into shipped work inside Jira.

Andreas Wengenmayer - Practice Lead, Enterprise Strategy Planning, catworkx
Advises enterprises on strategy, portfolio planning and delivery alignment.

Further Reading and Resources

• Free Goal-Clarity Canvas & Template
  An easy one-pager to turn vague goals into a clear outcome statement, success measures, and ownership. Includes guided prompts and a printable template you can use with any team.
• How We Simplified Our OKRs - and Got Better Strategy, Alignment, and Execution
  The inside story of how Easy Agile reduced OKR bloat, focused on outcomes, and improved cadence. Practical tips, examples, and pitfalls to avoid.
• The Ultimate Guide to PI Planning + Free Template
  A step-by-step guide to running effective increment/quarterly planning: roles, agenda, dependency mapping, and anti-patterns. Comes with a free downloadable template you can adapt to your context.

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